But Wonkette has now mainstreamed it. And I’m sick of it. Are you proud of yourselves? Do you get a bonus from Nick Denton for scraping the bottom of the barrel?

***

The writer at Wonkette responsible for sliming me is Alex Pareene, who posted the supposed instant message conversation between himself and an “operative.” Here is his blog.

Here’s a bit about him from a recent profile, in which he is effusively praised by his hip, edgy bosses:

“I’m not nearly as good of a writer as Ana Marie Cox, so we’re just going to have to live with that,” he said. “But I think what catches people’s attention is that I’m a 20-year-old who writes like an old man. I have a sort of frame of reference that’s about 50 years behind the times. I basically have encyclopedic knowledge about very arcane information. And also, I’m very effective at cursing.”

Gawker’s former managing editor Choire Sicha discovered Pareene in the spring of 2004 when Gawker asked their readers to suggest what kind of skits Paris Hilton should be in when she hosted “Saturday Night Live.” Both Gawker and Wonkette are owned by Gawker Media.

“I randomly sent them off a suggestion, and Choire Sicha, their managing editor, wrote me back and said, ‘You’re really funny. Are you a writer? Should I have heard of you? Let’s find a way to use you,’ ” Pareene said. “I was originally sort of a guest editor on Gawker.com. There were two weeks in the summer when they were between editors so they brought me in to fill in.”

Sicha said he has never met Pareene in person, but thinks Pareene’s talent is undeniable.
“He’s definitely one of the brightest comic talents I’ve ever come across,” Sicha said. “What he’s got is wiles — preternaturally, for someone his age. He’s creepy-talented, really — kind of spooky. Maybe he’s a hoax perpetrated by a 40-year-old housewife.”

The summer after he dropped out, Pareene began a stint as a guest editor for Gawker. But this time, he would actually get paid for his blogging — something he considers fairly remarkable.

“I still can’t believe I’m getting paid for it,” he said with a chuckle.

Gawker’s current managing editor, Lockhart Steele, said Pareene’s use of language and the way he “cocks his eyebrow at the media” caught his attention.

“We’re looking for someone who can have a little fun at the media’s expense,” Steele said. “Different blogs are enjoyable for different reasons and Alex has his own personality as a writer. You know when you like it, and when you go back to it, you ask yourself what brings you back and for Alex, I think it’s his quality of writing.”

From the Gawker Media “Terms of Use” page, which shows that commenters are held to a higher standard than Gawker Media sites’ editors and racist smear merchants:

Comments Terms of Use

The comments sections on GM Sites are accessible to users by invitation only (such invitations coming either from Gawker Media editors directly or by referral from existing comment users). GM’s comment user registration system has been designed so that, if the user so chooses, they can remain completely anonymous, even to us.

In order to make our comments useful and interesting, the following guidelines have been established for comment users: